Tourism Web Sites and Value-Added Services: The Gap Between Customer Preferences and Web Sites' Offerings

The purpose of this article is to report on a study of 1) what kind of value-added services offered by tourism businesses’ Web sites are perceived the most important by customers, and 2) a comparison between customers’ preferences for and the actual offerings of value-added services by tourism businesses’ Web sites. A survey among customers of online tourism businesses shows that search engines, service integration, and personalization are the most preferred value-added services by the customers. In addition to the survey among customers, a survey was undertaken among tourism businesses to reveal the level of value-added services offered on their Web sites. By comparing the results of customers’ preferences for value-added services and tourism companies’ offerings, it is found that tourism businesses should provide more value-added services on their Web sites in order to fill the gap between customers’ preferences for such services and the companies’ actual offerings.